Van cat

Not to be confused with Turkish Van or Turkish Angora.
"Van kedisi" redirects here. For the standardised breed sometimes called kurdish Vankedisi, see kurdish Van.
"Swimming cat" redirects here. For the species named the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), see Fishing cat. For the mustelid sometimes miscalled the "fisher cat", see Fisher (animal).

Van cat
An adult odd-eyed Van cat
OriginLake Van area of Turkey
Variety statusNot recognised as a standardised breed by any major breed registry.
Domestic cat (Felis catus)

The Van cat (Turkish: Van kedisi; Western Armenian: Վանայ կատու, romanized: Vana gadu; Eastern Armenian: Վանա կատու, romanized: Vana katu; Kurdish: pisîka Wanê) is a distinctive landrace (or "natural breed") of the domestic cat found around Lake Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey.

Van cats are relatively large, have a chalky white coat, sometimes with ruddy coloration on the head and hindquarters, and have blue or amber eyes or have heterochromia (one eye of each colour).[1][2][3] The variety has been referred to as "the swimming cat", and has been observed to swim in Lake Van.[4][5]

The naturally occurring Van cat type is popularly believed to be the basis of the Turkish Van breed,[1] as standardised and recognised by many cat fancier organizations; it has been internationally selectively bred to consistently produce the ruddy head-and-tail colouring pattern on the white coat. However, one of the breed founders' own writings indicate that the four original cats used to found the formal breed came from parts of Turkey other than the Lake Van area.[4][6] The run-together term "Turkish Vankedisi" is confusingly used by some organisations as a name for all-white specimens of the standardised Turkish Van breed.[7]

  1. ^ a b "Turkish Van Cats". Retrieved 8 April 2014. This tertiary source reuses information from other sources but does not name them. Like many sources, this one conflates the Turkish Van standarised breed, which is actually British, with the local Van cat landrace of Turkey, and so must be interpreted with caution.
  2. ^ "Van Kedisi". VanKedisi.net: En Güzel Kedilerin Sitesi (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 25 December 2012. Retrieved 12 February 2013. Machine translation into English.
  3. ^ Fowler, Susanne (20 February 2006). "Turkey takes action to save rare breed of feline". Newspot.BYEGM.go.tr. Ankara: Directorate General of Press and Information. Archived from the original on 18 July 2006.
  4. ^ a b Pond, Grace, ed. (1972). The Complete Cat Encyclopedia. London: Walter Parrish International. p. 114. ISBN 0-517-50140-6. This tertiary source reuses information from other sources but does not name them.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tabor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Lushington, Laura (1963). "The Swimming Cats". Animals. 1 (17): 24–27.
  7. ^ "Recognized and Admitted Breeds in the WCF". WCF-Online.de. Essen, Germany: World Cat Federation. 2012. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2013.